


Take my hand and lead me home

by gayalondiel



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-18
Updated: 2011-04-18
Packaged: 2017-10-18 08:34:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/186968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayalondiel/pseuds/gayalondiel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Summary: Sherlock and John had been growing closer, but after the pool, Sherlock has been avoiding John. Slowly he works out why.<br/>Genre: Angst (Angst/comfort?). Slash.<br/>Warnings: Not really.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Take my hand and lead me home

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: The Holmes characters fall in the public domain: This version falls under the creative control of Messers Moffatt and Gatiss, and the BBC. No ownership is implied or inferred. This is done for love only.  
> A/N: Well. A very, very long time ago lpili13 wrote this prompt asking for a fic addressing the moment Sherlock sees John at the pool. I optimistically said I’d write it. And then came flu, and then RL went all dramatic and I got distracted with dark!fic, and... well, suffice it to say I may be setting records for the latest prompt fill ever. But here it is, writ and ready and I hope not too far from the original concept. Post-pool fic is almost a discredited trope at this point, but it was fun to write.
> 
> Many thanks to the inimitable and wonderful warriorbot for a fantastic job as beta even though she was far too busy really.

Sherlock was rarely wrong, so he wasn’t used to it bothering him.

Incorrect conclusions happened, it was true. The inaccurate application of logic to a problem was not unknown, and frustrating when it happened, but more often than not it was simply a passing error on the way to a correct solution. He did not dwell on these problems but passed them off as insignificant details in the greater scheme of things. He was not one to overanalyse the past unless he could learn from it: only the present and future work concerned him.

He was even less likely to dwell on something that had been inaccurate when it occurred only in his head, for the briefest of moments - ideas that were never spoken or admitted or even something that could be dignified as a proper, logical thought. Many ideas crossed his mind in seconds as he was presented with a problem and a swift process of elimination narrowed down the impossible, the improbable, and the likely solutions. Part of the process was considering wild ideas that were nearly always wrong before dismissing them swiftly out of hand. He never thought of those solutions again unless new data came up to support them, and certainly never worried after the event.

So what was it that he could not stop thinking of John, and those first terrifying moments at the pool?

* * *

John pulled out the cannula from his arm with relish before the nurse could get to it and got a sigh directed at him for his trouble but no further admonishment. Eagerly, now that he was free of the drip, he pulled his shoes on and put his few belongings into the small bag that Sherlock had seen fit to bring him on his one visit. He suspected even that had been prompted by a combination of nagging from Mrs Hudson and Lestrade, who had both been in to visit several times. Sarah had been in more frequently, although quiet and out of spirits. He suspected that the phrase “We need to talk,” would be coming his way as soon as she thought he was well enough to hear it. The nurse proceeded with his final checks and paperwork and clucked her tongue disapprovingly that no-one was coming to pick him up. He assured her he was fine to make his own way and he would be safely going by taxi. She authorised his release and he made his escape.

The trip home was uneventful, and if John felt discomfited at travelling alone through the streets from which Moriarty had so effortlessly plucked him, he refused to show it. He had wondered whether Sherlock might come to meet him, but in his heart he knew that was a fruitless hope. Sherlock, although apparently interested in exploring what John would call a “relationship” and what he would probably call “an investigation into the development of physical intimacy between two persons of the male gender”, was not one for displays of emotion and affection. John fully expected to find him occupying the flat, either a whirling dervish of energy if a new case had come up, or a morose, sorry-for-himself mess on the sofa had he been left to his own devices. At the very least he expected to find either the kitchen or the living room, or both, coated in the results of some wayward experiment.

He did not expect to be met by the sound of a bedroom door slamming, leaving the rest of the flat empty for John to meander around on his own. He tried not to be too disappointed, knowing that Sherlock was a man of strange moods and behaviours, to put it mildly. But he could not help remembering Moriarty’s words at the pool, about him. Sherlock’s pet. His threat to burn the heart out of Sherlock. Logically, and he tried very hard to be logical through the hurt as he had no Sherlock to do it for him, John knew that Sherlock may have come to the conclusion that John was the liability he could not afford. He should, on reflection, have seen it coming.

* * *

Sherlock found himself, if possible, even more restless now that John was back in the flat. He threw himself into research, looking back over past cases for Moriarty’s fingerprints, texting Lestrade to nag for leads that he knew would not be forthcoming. He even went so far as to set his brother on the case and demand updates and autonomy in equal amounts, even though he knew full well that didn’t make sense. The sound of John, though, pervaded into his mind and interrupted his lightning-fast thoughts. Sounds of tea being made, letters being opened and the television being surfed for anything not completely inane cut him off so thoroughly that he had to go over ideas and documents three, four, even five times before he could convince himself that he understood his own conclusions. True enough, John seemed to have got the message that he didn’t want to see him right now and had not even called through as he normally did when he put the kettle on, but his very presence in the flat was enough to put Sherlock out of step with himself and drag him back to what he had been trying to avoid - thoughts of the pool and his failure.

He did not want to think about what John might be thinking, but he could not seem to help himself. He considered how the last few days and weeks had developed, how nights when John had not been seeing Sarah had moved them from flatmates to something less defined and more vulnerable. How they had gone from brushing past one another to lingering into the touch before either of them knew that was what they had been doing. How glances across the room had become looks and may even have developed into gazes had they not both been hypersensitive about the other noticing, even though they knew they already had. How John had tripped on the cable stretching from Sherlock’s laptop to the plug socket, and Sherlock had reached out automatically to catch him, and then they had just been there, too close and too warm and breathing harder than the occasion should have warranted. How John had gripped his shoulder just too tightly and he had known that he should let go far sooner than he did. How John had been on the verge of saying that he might have to “discuss things” with Sarah, when the phone had interrupted him and they had charged off to Lestrade’s summons. How the moment for talking about it had been missed, and John had gone back to Sarah because that was less confusing for him, but didn’t stop looking across the room at Sherlock far more often than was necessary.

Sherlock hoped that John would put his pointed absence down to all that, because it did not bother him half as much as the truth did and the last thing he wanted to do was have to share it with John. Sherlock was rarely wrong, and when he was he could see why, he could find the flaw in his logic or could identify how the evidence had easily pointed him in the wrong direction. He reasoned, he analysed, he learnt and he did not make the same mistake again.

Three days ago, however, was not a mistake he could rationalise away. Moriarty was not the problem - he could easily see how intrigue and challenge had got him so caught up in the game. He had not needed Mycroft and Lestrade to point it out even though they had done so at length. He knew that he had failed to consider how it might hurt the people he cared about. It could so easily have been either of them taken hostage by a man who was as mad as he was brilliant. He admitted to himself that he had never truly believed that Moriarty could match his own wits, and that was a fresh challenge as well as a concern to be handled in the course of time.

What he could not address so easily was the ease with which he had been thrown off his balance when John had first appeared at the pool, wearing a coat that was not his own and blinking in a strange way that Sherlock, the master of details and hidden communication, should have picked up on immediately. But he had not. He had been mentally incapacitated by a sensation he thought never to have been troubled by. And so he stayed in his room, long past the time when the blood samples in the fridge needed checking for the growth of the contaminant he had introduced. Another experiment ruined by John, but this time not because he had thrown it out in disgust or poured tea on it or knocked it over causing a minor contamination panic in the kitchen. John’s crime was simply being there while Sherlock was too cowardly to face him.

* * *

Painkillers, injuries, mild concussion and recurring status checks at all times of day or night had rendered John’s sleeping patterns utterly haphazard while in hospital and he was not surprised that they continued so upon his return home. He contented himself to sit up a few hours before exhaustion claimed him and he fell asleep in his chair, the television still talking to itself and his laptop on the coffee table, displaying a blog post filled with well-wishes from Lestrade’s people. Sleep was dark and dreamless, for which he would have been profoundly grateful had he the consciousness to think of it. Instead of waking at the sound of a soft tread and a rustling noise, he drifted on the edge of sleep where the darkness was only shades of grey and he could almost form a thought, a word, a name, before retreating back into gentle oblivion.

When he awoke it was the middle of the night. The television was off, the laptop closed, and the blanket had moved from the back of his chair. It was draped over him and tucked around his shoulders. He supposed he should go to bed, but the problem of Sherlock presented itself and he sat in thought instead.

Sherlock was avoiding him but not out of any kind of malice or he would not bothered with the blanket. Would he? Was Sherlock angry with him for letting himself be captured, be used as a pawn in the game with Moriarty, and at the same time feeling guilty because John had been hurt and needed to be looked after, as galling as it was to admit it? Maybe that was it: he was conflicted and responding the only way he could reason his way to, being kind to John without actually wanting to talk to him. John knew he was no match for Sherlock in deduction and wasn’t sure he had the reasons right, but they fit well enough. Now he frowned, uncertain of what to do. Should he leave, if Sherlock was that uncomfortable? Could he leave?

Where would he go? Not to Harry, he would have to find someone else to offer him charity for a few weeks until he got on his feet. Mike, perhaps, or Lestrade - they would understand if he said Sherlock was being difficult and he needed help while he was still injured. That would be a little unfair, playing the injury card, but it would solve a problem. Could he leave Sherlock, though? Should he be alone now, when Moriarty had him in his sights? Did Sherlock need a restraining hand that was equally equipped to wield a gun? Or was John a danger, even more crippled now by his new wounds than by the legacy of Afghanistan? Too slow, too easy to be picked off the street and shoved into an exploding vest. Too much a target for Moriarty who had delighted in telling him over and over how little he was compared to himself and Sherlock, mighty intellects locked in combat with John as an accessory to be cast aside. Maybe that was why Sherlock had pulled back from him. John was his weakness, and they had been growing closer, toward something new and ill-defined. Perhaps Sherlock could not take the risk of having a weakness.

John was sitting perfectly still in his chair as he thought, too tired and sore to move, and so the creak of a door opening broke the silence and made him jump. He turned his head in time to see Sherlock see him moving and freeze, looking for all the world like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming 4x4. He was wearing pyjamas and his blue dressing gown. John guessed he had not actually been asleep but was spending his time pouring over cases, trying to get at Moriarty any way he could. For a long moment neither of them moved nor spoke.

“Sherlock?” John finally broke the silence. That one word captured all he wanted to say. You weren’t there, are you angry, do you want me to leave, how can I leave you, are we ruined forever, why have you been hiding, do you not want me anymore? Somehow two small syllables encapsulated all that worry and confusion and fear, and he knew that Sherlock understood.

Sherlock sighed, looked away, actually bit his lip, and then moved to the couch and sat down, a safe distance from John but close enough to tell him that he was not going to run just now. There was no telling whether he might, if things became difficult, but that was just one more thing to deal with if it came up. John tugged the blanket down from his shoulders and slipped his arms over it in his lap, fiddling with the edge of it when Sherlock did not speak. He waited, knowing that he could not force this.

Finally, after several minutes of silence punctuated by breathing, Sherlock spoke. “I don’t want you to leave,” he said quietly.

“Okay,” replied John. He waited again.

“I don’t blame you,” continued Sherlock.

“Maybe you should?” offered John. Sherlock glanced up from where he had been staring fixedly at the coffee table and met his eyes for a moment.

“No,” he said. “That would serve no purpose and it would be inaccurate. You left because we argued and because I failed to recognise the true extent of the danger. It wasn’t your fault.” He looked away again.

“If you say so,” said John. His tone implied that he didn’t believe Sherlock and he let it, willing him to understand that it might be over for now, but John could not put it away so easily and would need time to get over having been used as a bargaining chip in their greater game. Sherlock seemed again to understand, and they moved on. He was silent for several minutes more, and John knew they must be coming to the crux of the issue.

“I was wrong,” Sherlock said finally.

“What about?” asked John automatically, running back over the events at the pool, the game, Moriarty, and coming up with only his insistence that Sherlock should care, and he was fairly sure that was not it. He waited, beginning to tire of Sherlock’s hesitance. It was frustrating and there was a part of him that wanted to reach over and grab the man, shake him until the answers rattled from his brain into coherent sentences. But he knew that getting angry with Sherlock would achieve nothing, and so he waited. Minutes passed, five, ten, and finally John decided that left to his own devices Sherlock could wait forever. “Sherlock, what were you wrong about?” he repeated, peering forward through the gloom as if he could maybe see the answer written on his friend’s face, but he could make out nothing. Still Sherlock was silent.

Eventually tiring of the game with no moves, John rose, pushing the blanket to one side, and walked towards the stairs to his room. He paused when he was opposite the sofa but did not look at Sherlock.

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll look into finding somewhere to stay tomorrow. I don’t know if I’ll be able to go straight away, but I’ll find somewhere and get out of your hair.” He turned to go but Sherlock had whipped his head round as he spoke and now reached out, taking his left arm in an almost claw-like grip and stopping him from leaving. John turned back with a sigh but Sherlock did not let go.

“I don’t want you to leave,” he said, the statement almost childlike.

“Well, you’ve got a funny way of showing it,” remarked John, his voice soft with frustration and tiredness, not anger. “You don’t visit me, you won’t be in the same room with me, you won’t talk to me, but you won’t let me leave? Sherlock, what was I supposed to think? Clearly you’ve got a problem with me.” The grip on his arm loosened but did not let go.

Sherlock glanced down, away, anywhere but at John. “It’s not you,” he said quietly. “It’s me.” John almost laughed at the cliché but bit down on his response, knowing it would only aggravate things. Instead he tugged the coffee table toward the sofa with his free hand and sat on the edge of it so that he was knee to knee with Sherlock. Gently he prised Sherlock’s fingers from his bicep and then, because he wasn’t sure what else to do, rested his forearms on his legs, still holding Sherlock’s hand with both of his.

“Tell me?” he pleaded softly. Sherlock glanced at him for a split second before turning his head away, but in that time John read confusion and distress and a hint of self-directed anger there, and on impulse he untangled his right hand, caught Sherlock gently but firmly by the jaw, and guided his head back round. He could feel as well as see that Sherlock was thrumming with tension, almost quivering, from a feeling as yet unidentified turned inwards and threatening to unpick him from within if John did not get a handle on it.

John Watson was not a man of spoken words. Writing he could get away with and his blog was coming on in leaps and bounds, from simply factual to a more considered prose that recalled long-abandoned grammar school concepts of structure, style and narrative flow constructed and adjusted lovingly over many drafts. Writing he could manage. But speech was not his forte, it was too clumsy, too immediate. Too often the words leaving his mouth were not the same as the ones he thought he had constructed in his mind. John was a man of action, his body doing the talking for him, be it a cup of tea with too much milk when his friend badly needed something - anything - in his system, a sympathetic glance with Lestrade behind Sherlock’s back when he was infuriating beyond reason, a blanket laid carefully over his sister when she crashed out on the sofa, a glass fallen from her fingers, or a perfectly aimed shot through two windows and one shoulder to save the life of a man he’d known for a single day. When words failed, John acted. And so he hesitated just the length of a breath before leaning forward and softly covering Sherlock’s lips with his own.

Sherlock started slightly, but John held firm, recalling the looks and brushes and hesitant touches that had lead him towards this moment. After several heartbeats Sherlock shifted against him, leaned in slightly, his free hand stealing John’s from his face back down to his lap. He tangled their fingers together, clinging on just slightly too tight, as though he was afraid that John would slip away on a breath of wind. John squeezed his hands in return and thought he felt a ripple of tension slip from Sherlock and then found himself being drawn forward with a sudden need, not urgent but somehow desperate. Sherlock pulled him in and John followed, still kissing him, until they fell on the sofa in an awkward tangle of limbs and dressing gown cord. Sherlock somehow managed to get one arm free and wrapped it around John’s waist, pulling him tight and tugging until John was on top of him and their bodies were pressed together as close as they could make themselves. John shifted his focus, dragging his left hand from where it was trapped against Sherlock’s torso and cupped his head, following it by tracing a line of kisses from the corner of his mouth back to the angle of his jaw and down, pressing his lips to Sherlock’s neck and breathing through his hair. The scent of him was clean and warm and strong and something he could only label as Sherlock. The sensation was new, thrilling and overwhelming, so when Sherlock spoke, more than a moan, slightly less than a whisper, it took him several moments to realise what he had said.

“I’m sorry.”

John froze. Now that he was still he could feel Sherlock trembling again, just slightly, the fingers resting at his waist twitching minutely. He drew a breath, held it, released it slowly and Sherlock was still shaking. John drew back slightly, not far enough that he could see Sherlock’s eyes and cause him further worry, but far enough that he was not pressed tightly against his skin. “What are you sorry for?” he asked hesitantly, gently stroking through Sherlock’s hair with tiny movements of his thumb in what he hoped was a comforting manner.

“I was wrong,” whispered Sherlock, and John felt the ghost of movement as his jaw passed against John’s hair. “I was wrong, and then I was angry with myself for being wrong, and then with you for making me wrong, because I’m never wrong like that. You’ve confused the hell out of me and I didn’t know how to deal with that. I’m sorry I was wrong and I’m sorry I pushed you but it’s what I had to do, because I needed to deal with that in case it was too much and I had to stop.”

“Stop what?” asked John, although he thought he knew and the idea of it was making his heart suddenly thud loud and solid in his chest. He was sure Sherlock could feel it.

“Stop this. Stop us. I didn’t know - I don’t know - if I can keep going with things. Cases. Life. With you. You put me off, you change things, you distract me and I don’t know if I can adapt to that...”

He was building up a head of steam, John could hear it, and if he didn’t catch him Sherlock was liable to go for days without making the point that he thought was obvious but John had so evidently missed. “Sherlock,” he interrupted. “Sherlock! I don’t know... Tell me what you’re talking about. Why were you wrong, what sparked this off?”

“It was at the pool,” Sherlock said simply.

“Right...” said John, his mind racing to catch up. He turned his head slightly to brush against Sherlock’s jaw. “You weren’t wrong about Moriarty, he turned up. You were wrong about him wanting the plans but that was nothing, wasn’t it?. So it was...”

“You.”

“Me?”

“You were there,” said Sherlock. His hand slipped up John’s back and pulled in, pushing them together, holding John tightly to his chest as if he were worried that the other man might escape, evaporate, slip through his fingers in seconds once he had revealed what he had to say. “I saw you, and I thought... I didn’t realise, and I should have seen, because you were telling me, but it was you, and I couldn’t see, and...” His voice trailed off, but finally, finally John thought he had got to the same place where Sherlock was.

“You thought I was...”

“I didn’t know!” cried Sherlock, his voice sudden and loud and hot against John’s ear. “I didn’t know what to think, I should have seen, I always see, but I was frightened that I was wrong, and that I was right, and it stopped everything, and all I could see was you, not the things you were telling me but just you, and I couldn’t think...”

“That never happens to you, does it?” murmured John, frightened slightly at Sherlock’s babbling. Sherlock shivered beneath him, gripped tightly at his waist, and was silent. John closed his eyes, finally understanding. Sherlock hadn’t thought he himself was Moriarty, not exactly, but for a moment the doubt had rested there. He had been emotional and panicked and guided by that, even though John’s memory of the moment would never have illustrated it in a hundred years. Sherlock had not been able to rationalise, analyse or understand, he had just felt shock and anguish and the edge of betrayal and for a moment his formidable brain had ground to a halt. The shock alone must have been utterly overwhelming for him. And he had gone on, switched his brain back on and worked, duelled with Moriarty and only after the situation had resolved and they were away and safe had he allowed himself to return to that terrifying, paralysing moment.

John knew there was nothing he could say. He could not explain to Sherlock how normal and understandable self-doubt were, because they were not normal for him. He could not tell him that he was fine with it, with being doubted, because it was Sherlock who was not fine and would go on not being fine for a while. He could not tell him to forget it, nor forgive it, because Sherlock would do neither. So he did the only thing he could, drawing back and guiding Sherlock’s face to his and pressing a burning kiss on his lips.

* * *

Much, much later, when they had kissed and held and clung and grappled with one another for what seemed like hours, they rested. John lay flat on his back on top of Sherlock, who was also on his back stretched out along the sofa, John’s head pillowed on his shoulder. Sherlock’s pale fingers were idly drawing spiral patterns directly onto John’s chest, their shirts and Sherlock’s dressing gown having been discarded some time previously.

“It’s not all right, you know,” Sherlock commented.

“I know,” replied John. “But it’s all right that it’s not all right. I don’t mind, and I even think I understand. Just... don’t shut me out, okay? If it happens again, if you think you can’t handle having me around because I put you off, or I stop you from thinking logically, you have to tell me. Don’t just push me away, all right?”

“I’m never wrong like that,” Sherlock said insistently. “I shouldn’t have been wrong. I can’t have it happen again. I can’t afford to be affected by my emotions like that.”

“Well, it might,” said John, the feeling of contentment that had settled in his chest evaporating in a cold chill. “So, what? You want me to leave?”

“No.”

“You want to learn to deal with it?”

”No.”

“Well, you will have to choose,” said John, fighting to keep his voice calm. “I can’t flick a switch and make it all right in your head. Although you might be able to... maybe in time you’ll be able to ignore it? Ignore me, when you need to?”

“I don’t want to ignore you. Just... how you make me feel.”

“Oh.” John let that sink in, reminding himself inside his head that this was Sherlock, who just said the things he thought, who didn’t think about how his words impacted on people unless he was manipulating them as a means to an end, who seemed perennially unaware of just how much he could upset John until after the fact. He couldn’t help but tense at the words, though, and Sherlock’s breath hitched just slightly, telling John that he had understood.

“I didn’t mean...”

“Actually, you did,” interrupted John. As gently as he could he shifted his weight and rolled awkwardly off and away from Sherlock. He got to his feet and walked away. This should be easy enough, they’d only just started whatever it was they were doing. He wasn’t an idiot, he knew what Moriarty had meant when he told Sherlock he had a heart. He knew that he would be a liability even if he didn’t distract Sherlock by making him emotional and human and flawed. He was not sharp enough to keep up with Sherlock. Apparently he was not savvy enough to notice when he was being tailed until he was being dragged away by ludicrously clichéd henchmen. He was the weak link in the chain of Sherlock’s ridiculous life and he knew that the risk of this distraction was probably too much for either of them at the moment. He knew it would be easier for Sherlock that way - hell, the man could probably just delete their whole friendship, retaining only the information pertaining to Moriarty, and could go on quite happily without him. He drew a breath.

There was a whisper of movement behind him and then a pair of thin ivory arms, tender but firm, wrapped around him from behind and pressed him back against a smooth chest.

“Don’t think that,” Sherlock whispered, brushing his lips against his ear. “Don’t ever think that, it’s not what I want. I just... I just have to work out how to deal with this. I don’t want not to feel it. I just want it not to stop me from working.”

“Sherlock...”

“No,” he insisted. “I can’t delete this, I won’t delete it. I want you, John, not just the work, I want you both. Normal people manage.”

“You’re not normal,” murmured John, but he let his head drop back against Sherlock’s shoulder again, already knowing that he was doomed.

“So much the better,” replied Sherlock, “because I am better than normal people, and I will make it work even more than they do. It just startled me, that’s all.”

“No, it was more than that,” said John. “You were freaked out, Sherlock, completely. You didn’t speak to me for days. You just told me that you don’t know how to fix it. It’s not something you can just shake off.”

“But I can. It’s all right now. You’ll help me, and you’ll never betray me, because you love me. I know that now. It’s not going to be something I get over straight away but I will ignore it until I work out how to fix it, because you’re on my side and that’s not going to change. It won’t be all right straight away, but I would rather get to the point of it being all right than abandon it now.”

John’s brain had stalled spectacularly less than halfway through Sherlock’s slightly gabbled statement. “I... I love you?”

“Of course.” John saw the shift in Sherlock’s expression out of the corner of his eye and felt rather than observed his small smile. “You may not realise it yet, but you love me.”

“And... do you love me?”

“Don’t be so pedestrian,” Sherlock complained, and there it was, there was the missing note of sarcasm and disdain even through affection that let John know that Sherlock, his Sherlock was still in there. “If you can’t work it out from everything I’ve said, then I’m not going to tell you.”

“Right.” John felt floored, lost, and somehow more comfortable than he had in weeks. “So. Um. I’m not leaving, you’re not leaving. You’re not cross with me for getting picked up like that, even though it was fairly pathetic. I distract you, threw you completely in fact, but that’s okay because we’re apparently in love and you’ll learn to deal with it, somehow, I don’t know how, but that’s your problem. If you freak out again - you might, so shut up - if you freak out again we’ll deal with it. I will do my best not to get kidnapped anymore and then you won’t have to worry about whether I’m betraying you anyway. We’ll figure out a way to take out Moriarty and it won’t be an issue any more, and you and I will live happily ever after solving crimes?”

“That sounds like a plan,” said Sherlock. John smiled.

“You promise...”

“Yes, if it happens again I promise to talk to you about it. You will break up with Sarah?”

“Sarah?” John repeated, startled by the sudden segue. Sherlock nipped his shoulder gently.

“I don’t share,” he said firmly. “You were going to break up with her anyway. You almost have already.”

“Right,” said John, nodding. “I break up with Sarah, and you and I live happily ever after. I can deal with that.”

“Good,” breathed Sherlock, tugging John gently back towards the sofa. John let himself be led, feeling completely lost and utterly found.


End file.
